A patent filed by Apple hints to the possibility of individual preferences/settings for applications directly from the home screen instead of the current messy system of having to open up the app to change prefs or having to browse through the settings app menus to access preferences. The current system is a bit of a mess and I personally do not like app prefs being in the settings app at all.

"The user interface has a plurality of application icons. In response to a first gesture, the GUI changes the appearances of the application icons whose corresponding applications have user-adjustable settings," the filing explains. "In response to a second gesture on a selected application icon whose appearance is changed, the GUI displays user-adjustable settings of an application that corresponds to the selected application icon. In response to one or more additional gestures, the GUI changes one or more user-adjustable settings of the application that corresponds to the selected application icon."

From the patent diagram above it appears that Apple is thinking the plan is to put an "i" icon on the applications to open the settings from the home screen allowing settings to be easily accessed instead of having to browse through the menus. This system has been used before by Apple for Widgets. Not familiar with widgets? I made up a quick little image of what the system could look like if implemented.

LockScreen Advanced Notification

Apple also has a patent filed that looks a whole like IntelliScreen which is currently only available for jailbroken phones.

Apple could be planning on implementing this more advanced notification system for alerts like voicemail, email, text and possibly more on the lock screen. Further advances could be notifications that remain after the screen is unlocked so you don't have to rely on your memory to remember what notification you unlocked your phone for. Their patent also looks to cover buttons on the homescreen to take you directly to the notifications instead of unlocking your phone and making your way through the menus.

"In response to detecting an interaction by a user with the device, the plurality of icons display notification information for the plurality of communication modalities," the filing explains. "In response to detecting an unlock interaction by the user with the device, the device is unlocked, and a communication in the plurality of communications is presented that was received while the device was in the locked state, or information about the communication is presented."

Please remember the above to patents outline things that we could see on the iPhone. The patents do not mean that these features (while many of us would enjoy them ) are coming. It's up to Apple ---- or neat Apps like IntelliScreen